The thesis behind the current bail outs is that some companies are too big to fail. The antithesis is that the United States government is too big to succeed.

It is impossible to administer an organization the size of the federal government even with tools such as the fastest, most powerful computers running the latest, sophisticated, management software. Here are just a few components of our ponderous government:

·       Ownership of one million cars and 600,000 vehicles.

·       Thousands of aircraft, tanks, ships, rifles, canons, rockets, missiles, atomic bombs, air bases, forts, naval stations, buildings, post offices, ports of entry, parks, and on, and on.

·       There are 14.6 million people on the federal payroll according to a 2006 study by a New York University Professor Paul C. Light. His figures include not only civil servants, but also people in: government funded projects, organizations with public grants, the postal service, and military personnel. Obviously and unfortunately, that number has increased dramatically in the ensuing years.

·       Currently, there are approximately 478 federal agencies, services, commissions, administrations, bureaus, and corps. Many of these entities are redundant; for example, there are 19 defense agencies.

This overwhelming task is made even more complex by constant political micromanagement. No wonder the government fails.      

Government projects and agencies, almost without exception, are failures. Yet, unlike the public sector where failing entities close or are subject to bankruptcy, the Congress continues to throw tax payer money at these failures.

The United States Post Office loses money year after year in spite of continuously raising the prices of postage stamps. There is talk of cutting postal service to 5 days per week to reduce losses. No thought about reorganizing or even privatizing this service. FED EX or UPS could and would run the post office profitably.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency Agency, failed to perform, the very duties for which it was established, during Hurricane Katrina in 2005. Amplifying the lack of accountability, Congress, which investigated the break down, only fired one individual. The government solution was to create another stultifying layer of bureaucracy to oversee FEMA and combine it with the CIA, FBI, and Homeland Security.

AMTRAK has lost $1 billion dollars in its 40 years of existence. Its budget increases on the order of 4 or 5 % annually. This year not only has its budget increased but it was awarded over $1 billion, from TARP, to upgrade its equipment.

The Obama administration promises that the recent stimulus packages will create 3 million jobs. Hopefully, that will prove to be true. It is estimated that these spending programs will require an additional 600,000 federal administration positions, adding to the federal government’s unwieldiness.

Almost every federal government agency has reoccurring errors and failures. The 2 major failures of the intelligence agencies: believing that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and not preventing the 9/11 catastrophe. The SEC didn’t prevent the banking and financial excesses, which led to this recession. NASA has one hundred astronauts on its payroll. The FBI lost lap tops with classified material twice. The Department of Defense cannot account for billions of dollars expended during the Iraq war. The passive, American public has been so conditioned to these lapses that they have come to expect government failures.

There are sufficient standards and regulations to prevent these mistakes. However, our government has grown so large that it can’t provide the necessary oversight that is necessary to succeed. Instead of working to minimize the size of the federal government and make it more efficient, politicians are adding more and more programs. These same government welfare, social, and business programs are run more efficiently and successfully by the private sector. The massive federal government is a good example of why socialism fails. It is impossible for one person or a group of individuals to run this many programs, let alone an entire country (socialism) because of the almost infinite number of management decisions and oversight required.